“Gentlemen.—It is a remarkable thing that there should be any difference in regard to the mode of treatment to be pursued in a disease such as this, I believe it is the Italian and French schools which advocate so very strongly the employment of tartar emetic; but I would strongly urge you to put no confidence in this remedy, for if you do so, you will lean on a broken reed. Our sheet-anchor in this disease is mercury; under the action of which you must bring the patient as soon and as freely as you possibly can—even bleeding is of little importance in comparison with the use of mercury. The two combined, i.e., mercury and blood-letting is, of course, best; but at all events use mercury, and never trust to tartar emetic. “Thus doctors differ and the patient dies.” As in the theatrical world a peep behind the scenes destroys the illusion of the piece, so in the real world such revelations as the foregoing, are well calculated to stagger thoughtful minds, and to shake to the centre a blind and unreasoning faith in the allopathic system. Does not the reflection suggest itself on reading such a revelation as the above—since it is impossible that the practice of both these learned professors can be right, is it not possible that the practice of both may be wrong? That eminent physician, the late Sir Philip Crampton, was in the habit of warning all his gouty and rheumatic patients to avoid the use of colchicum, terming it a “desperate remedy,” and affirming that it was better to bear any amount of pain than have recourse to it. This was the deliberate opinion of one of the most able men in his profession, who must have been fully impressed with a conviction of its injurious effects; yet this remedy is continued to be prescribed to thousands, with what result let those who have experienced it testify. Here then again is a serious disagreement in practice between members of the medical profession, in which one party must again be wrong. If those who use colchicum are to be ranged amongst the latter, where our own sufferings under it would place them, their victims may well be pitied. If colchicum be not a poisonous drug, why did Sir Philip Crampton so strongly inveigh against it? If it be, can that system be right which prescribes it as a remedy? Such is the system termed orthodox, styling all who presume to differ from it quacks.